I’ll nominate the AMC Pacer for worst car of all time.
The low drag coefficient is no lie. With that and the weight you can drive the thing in a gale and never know it. The window is that way not out of styling but because there's no room for the entire thing to go down into the door (too much curvature too). One of the best cars I've ever driven.
The article speaks disparagingly of the Subaru Justy. Great little cars. Best money I ever spent on a ride.
Outside the 25 year scope, but I nominate the Ford Fiesta, at least as sold in the US in the late 70s.
Still, I think the Lincoln Blackwood is kind-of cool. Maybe I would buy one if I was a country music star.
But if you start discussing engines, don't ping me, lolol.
What?? No AZTEK????
Car & Driver magazine has a very poor collective memory. They’ve picked on the Chrysler TC Maserati, which is truthfully just badge engineering. Sans the stupid retro porthole a la the 57 T-Bird, it actually was a clean, well-proportioned car, for an American manufacturer at that time. C&D forgets that Cadillac did much the same with the unlamented Allanté, even more grossly overpriced and not as well proportioned. The Buick derivative, with a fixed hardtop, strange bar-of-soap proportions and oddly tall, narrow tires lending a somewhat agricultural stance to the car ... well, it didn’t sell. I forget the name of the thing, and I’m something of a car nut. What does that tell you?
The Subaru SVX sold in low numbers because it was expensive. I don’t know about “flop,” though. It’s a great car. Rock solid, reliable like a Subie always is, and they’re very popular as ski cars. The segmented windows weren’t a Subaru/Giugaro exclusive. There were many exotics and concepts with a variation on this theme. I actually like the styling. It reminds me of what a modern Citroen should’ve looked like (and yes, I’m fond of the old DS21).
As far as AMC is concerned, I too have a soft spot for old Ramblers, my dad bought my mom one, a Rambler American wagon, antique white with a red interior. It was a great car for her, small enough to be easily parked and negotiated, a nearly bulletproof straight six, and room enough for us, the neighborhood kids and a few dogs for picnics, trips to the swim club or the local state park ... no bad memories here.
As far as the Pacer, it was plagued with the budget problems that all seventies AMC products experienced. Dick Teague was a genius, as far as design, but practical reality dictated the use of existing platforms, engines, suspensions, etcetera. This resulted in cars that were 1/3 again too large to “work” visually. If the Pacer had been produced at the scale it was originally designed for, with a rotary engine or a four-banger base engine as intended, it would not have seemed quite so peculiar, that ambulatory fishbowl thing. Another Teague design that was ruined by bad proportions due to budget constraints was the last AMC Matador coupe. Had it been yet again not 1/3 too large, it would have been a beautiful car, and it actually still is in photos. In person, it’s out of scale.
If you’re going to crap on the old AMC, the four door Matador, with it’s weird Jimmy Durante proboscis, would be the one to crap on. But, that again was driven by lack of budget, and the need to meet crash testing. They just put a snoot on there for a crumple zone.
During this time, GM ruined the Riviera, the Coupe de Ville, really every evocative, beautiful, iconic American coupe they had in their roster. They killed them with ugly, with proportions that reeked of four door sedan but with just two doors (like some hastily thrown together postwar “coupes), and they pawned it all off on “changing tastes.” People don’t buy ugly when they’re buying a coupe. Ugly killed them, and that was a massive, stupid flop.
I can’t really think of anything noteworthy from Ford during this timeframe; the worst you could say is that they could be fairly dull and often had lackluster performance.
Outside of these examples, the biggest flop of all in this era belonged to Fiat. From the strange Strada, to the lovely but temperamental and breakdown prone X1/9, they were forced to pull out of the US. Engines that needed to have the timing belt changed out every 35K miles, and if you didn’t and the belt broke, you’d throw a rod, rust, flimsy interiors. Pieces of junk. I have no idea how they could ever dominate any market.
